Sometime today, or at the latest Thursday morning, the Mississippi River should finally drop below flood stage on the Natchez gauge.

Remember a month and a half ago, when it seemed like we may never see the rocks along the banks again?

Thankfully, the great flood of 2011 didn’t cause significant damage to most of the Miss-Lou.

It did, however, mess with our psyche.

Like much in these parts, I think we can safely blame it on Hurricane Katrina.

When the gulf storm’s floodwaters backed into the river and canals around New Orleans in 2005 and levees started breaking, new fears were planted into the minds of Miss-Lou residents.

All of a sudden, modern-day citizens who didn’t live through catastrophic floods of the past had a very real example that the almighty levees could break.

The National Weather Service’s May predictions of 65 feet of water in Natchez sent much of Concordia Parish running for higher ground, or at least taking their belongings there.

The keepers of the levees — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — did little to ease anyone’s worries, perhaps because they never realized, or cared, just how worried folks were.

From an engineering perspective, the levees were never in danger, I now believe. The Corps likely knew that, and was unable or unwilling to see that the need for vocal, public reassurance was due to worries created by Katrina, not any current levee shortcomings.

Without a constant, authoritative and reassuring voice — and without answers to the questions residents ask — panic comes.

Vidalia Mayor Hyram Copeland and Concordia Parish Sheriff Randy Maxwell saw the need to communicate with the public and provide answers early on, and they are the only reason pandemonium didn’t engulf more people.

The men didn’t fill the void without endangering their own health, though. From the first community meeting to address flood fears, Copeland made it clear to his community that their fears were more important than his sleep.

He shared his cell phone number with a crowd of more than 100 people, urging anyone and everyone to call him with any questions.

In the following days, nearly every time I managed to edge an incoming call into his, no doubt, busy phone, he recounted a story of being awakened at 2 or 3 a.m. by a call from a scared resident.

I started to wonder whether his own lack of sleep might mean he was simply confusing his nights and telling me the story of the same resident over and over.

Regardless, that wasn’t important at the time.

Things slowed down for the parish leaders when the predicted crest dropped and eventually came with no levee break. Copeland told me on one of those good days that he’d gotten more than four hours of sleep for the first time in weeks and was feeling great.

Turns out the job titles of mayor and sheriff come with a few other emergency job duties — therapist and worry easier.

The flood has passed now, and sleep comes easier for the parish residents.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as most of us once feared. But the levees in New Orleans taught us to worry, and that history lesson is one current residents may never forget.

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.